Tagged 'buyer modeling'

This is part 4 of a limited series on why buyer choice modeling is the new view B2B Business must adopt to improve revenue performance and develop long lasting relationships with buyers.

Connecting with today’s B2B buyers is on the minds of most CEO’s and their teams today. Not too long ago, reaching and connecting with B2B buyers was a straight forward proposition. Depending on surveys from such sources as IDC, IDG Connect, DemandGen Report, Forrester, and more, we know that buyers are remaining invisible to B2B businesses and spend only a quarter of their time talking directly to sales when making purchase decisions. The idea of connecting to B2B buyers has gone from straight forward to major league complex.

There are plenty of debates regarding the best tactical means to connect with B2B buyers. The effectiveness of these tactical means, as reported by once again the likes of IDC and etc., show that many B2B leaders believe these tactical efforts such as content marketing and marketing automation may only be effective about a quarter of the time. It does represent a big gap and it begs for a rephrasing of the challenge – this... Read more

This is part 2 of a limited series on why buyer choice modeling is the new view B2B Business must adopt to improve revenue performance and develop long lasting relationships with buyers.
Growth is getting harder and harder to come by. With this comes the realization that some of the embedded thinking about how to reach and market to buyers are not working well. In part 1 of this series we looked at how the funnel is facing a slow death and the limitations of so called funnel thinking. We are entering a new era of the buyer. Buyer behaviors are shifting yet we know only a fraction about this shift. One emerging insight is that of buyer choice. Simply stated, buyers are making multiple choices prior to as well as well after buying decisions.
Buyers Have Many Options. The floodgates have opened on channels, social media, old media, the Internet, and countless other ways to interact, explore, retrieve, and digest information in this new era of the buyer. With countless options available, buyers are making choices on where to start their exploring.
The Buyer At The Center Of Strategy, Marketing, And Sales. ... Read more

Recently, I published two articles related to 5 ways buyer behaviors are affecting B2B sales, and 5 ways they are affecting B2B marketing. Without question, changing buyer behaviors are also impacting how we think about Demand Generation or as it has been conventionally called – lead generation. Contrary to hyped notions of sales going away to wither in the desert - lead generation and the new label of demand generation are more important today than ever.
What needs to change you might ask? An easy answer is to say plenty. The complicated answer is to say that the mindset towards demand generation needs to change. The kernel of truth regarding this dichotomy lies somewhere in between the new labeling of demand generation and the more conventional labeling of lead generation. And labels can be a dangerous thing. It is easy to go on doing the same thing and call it something new. It is much harder to call something new and transform as well as adapt.
The promises of demand generation as well as content marketing are to overcome the hype and truly enable businesses to transform and adapt. A critical way... Read more

I would not be surprised today if a group of B2B executives said they were using fortune tellers to peer into a crystal ball to make predictions about the future. The fast pace of change makes the crystal ball of how buyers will behave in the future enveloped in a hazy fog. C-Suites are under enormous pressures to get it right the first time with regards to marketing and sales planning.
The ability to make decisions based on predictions is becoming an essential attribute for B2B executives. Predictions come with a host of implications and the ability to assess their impact is perhaps the toughest part of strategy planning. One approach that has been used by executives to inform strategy planning is that of scenario modeling. It has been used both in business and in military exercises for several decades. What matters in today’s B2B climate is having the ability to predict multiple scenarios and more importantly – multiple buying scenarios that will shape the organization’s marketing, sales, product, content, and social strategies.
Predictive analytics and modeling has mostly been about exactly what the name implies – an exercise in using analytics to predict and model... Read more